City Commission - Regular Meeting

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I call this special meeting of the Pittsburgh City Commission to order uh this on Wednesday, December 27th, 2025. Will you join me in the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

My mistake. I said December 27th. I'm I'm getting a little ahead of myself at December 17th. Thank you, sir. Uh DJ, would you lead us in a prayer?

Yes, sir. Let's bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we find ourselves in a new day, in a new life. Help us be brave in standing, quiet in sitting, and patient in waiting. Guide us to cooperate with others and to align our will with yours. Send your spirit to doubt and indecision and help us walk your path every day for wisdom and trust. Lord, grant us the wisdom to make right choices and understand to walk in your path, not the worlds. To help me in ours commit works to you, trusting your highest thoughts and your ways. lead us as we lead on you acknowledging answer everyday questions. In your name we pray. Amen.

Is there [snorts] any items to be removed from the consent agenda? There's a motion to approve. I make a motion to approve the consent agendall vote. Brooks, yes. Height, yes. Yes. Perry, yes. Yes.

Moving on. Consider the following. Hartland business systems agreement. Consider staff recommendation to enter into an agreement with H Heartland Business Systems for the imple implementation of a replacement data center dash disaster recovery to uh environment backup solutions and various switching improvements. in the amount of 1,139,9365 through a through a lease purchase over 5year annual cycle. Before before we get there, Jeff, I I would like to ask if anybody in the audience would like to come up and speak about their concerns on this particular item. State your name and address. Sure. Roger Longshack, 1147 South 220th Street. I guess I've I've got a couple of questions and and maybe it'd be better to have them do the presentation first. They may they may answer some of these, but but I'll I guess I'll put them up front just in in case not. Um it was it was um if this project has been worked on for a year and a half, why was it not included in the in the budget which was just passed recently? It seems like knowing that this kind of expense was coming, we this could have been placed in the budget and put into it's a significant expense. It's not an an extra 5 or 10 grand for something, but a a pretty significant um expense and a burden we're asking the taxpayers to shoulder on top of what's already, you know, something we've talked about quite a bit, a significant tax increase that the city has placed on the on the taxpayers. Um just barely two years ago,

the system was hacked, had a major rebuild done. That was, I think, over $300,000 the city spent on that. I realize things constantly need upgraded there. There's always new software and new hardware, but um that was only two years ago and and now we're looking at spending nearly that 200 what almost 230,000 a year or whatever was whatever is we're looking at now over 200,000 a year for the next 5 years to do this. Um Jeff had mentioned that this is going to store body cam footage which brings a a lot of significant security concerns. the things anything that deals with law enforcement storage of data needs to needs to be CJ CJIS compliant which is a standard set that is set by the FBI for data security that's significantly beyond just what what a private system can be can be done. Um, something with that that I had a question about is why are we needing to build a custom system versus, you know, Pittsburgh, of course, we're our own special city, but we're not that unique in terms of having having the requirements of of any municipality this size that there I would think there'd be plenty of of essentially turnkey solutions for municipalities that we could look at. And I I brought up I think the last time about the uh cloud storage that's something to look at and I realize that may there may be a higher upfront cost or it may take longer to do that but it it seems that's what the best practice is to simply get away from physical storage completely. Most in the case of the body cam stuff my understanding was most body cam vendors provide storage of the body cam footage as part of the contract with them. That's I'm I'm certain we can I'm sure if we dismiss that it's the body cams themselves cost less, but we're also then we're on the hook for all the data storage as well as the security of that

[snorts] stored data um for that. And the last question was whether there was there was actually a true formal bid process for a for a project this size that over over a million dollar project. Um, [clears throat] you know, I don't know, uh, Jeff said there were they they had put something out, but whether it was a formal bid and something that was that had some some outside experts offer some some advice on how to configure this stuff uh, would be questions I would have. Are we going we're going to talk about the other stuff now too or the the the eagle thing or is that we're going to do? I'm just going to talk about a right now. So, if you have any concerns on a that's what we're Yeah. Okay. Well, that's that's it for that. Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Uh, I was going to say, I don't know if you stayed up with all those questions, Jeff, but Roger, I'm sure Jeff's going to cover a lot of them, but before you get started, Jeff. Yes, sir.

Talking about the bid package, I I asked the city clerk to provide all all the commissioners with uh the purchasing policy. And in this purchasing policy, I'm just going to read this so people can understand what I'm talking about. com competitive proposals under circumstances where the procurement involves highly technical or specialized services, computer networks, software or engineering services for example. It may be the organization's best interest to use competitive proposal procedures whereby a competitor's qualifi qualifications are evaluated and the most qualified competitor is selected subject to negotiation of a fair and reasonable compensation. In these instances, price is not used as a selection factor. Once the most qualified firm is identified, only that firm is asked for price proposal that is subject to negotiations of fair and reasonable price. If negotiations with the selected firm are unsuccessful, the process is repeated with the next highest rank ranked firm until a fair and reasonable price contract can be awarded. Following up with that, the request for proposal or quotation should clearly state the technical requirements for the goods and services required be publicized to extent of practibility and all proposals should be evaluated following the same procedure. At least three competitors should be considered if possible and determination of the most qualified competitor and reasonleness of the contract price will needed will be needed to document all reasonable requests for consideration should be honored and I think that's what you guys

that uh commissioner mayor that is precisely how this process went. This was not a competitive bid. This was a competitive proposal.

Right. Um, specifically as far as putting out the technical requirements and so forth publicly, that goes down kind of a rabbit hole of putting [snorts] out a lot of our infrastructures details publicly for people to respond. We had multiple vendors uh reach out to us over the last two years. We did reach out to our incumbent. They were the first one that we went down this process with. Um, and we were not happy with the price or the proposal. mostly the uh price at the time due to some market volatility. So we went back and tried again and again and and now we're here and we are with a secondary uh person which I believe

so you only had two we only had two that we felt were really and I I just want to follow up on that. Uh Jeff made himself available for each of us to come and try to get some uh information on this and he did a good job explaining it. But like I told Jeff, I said, I would like to have a way where all five commissioners get the same information at the same time. And I know that can't be done in a public forum because some of the stuff you explained, if you talk about there's some people out there going to listen to this stuff. Yes, sir. So, can we sometime do that so we all have the same

um Yeah, I I'm I'm available to you guys any time. I know having all five of you together at one time, there are some rules around that. So, however that needs to be aligned, I'm available, okay, 24/7 to you and the city. All right. So, are you going to go through the whole whatever you can talk? Uh I that's the the question. Uh I know last week we kind of went through this. Do you want me to address any of the concerns now? I mean, I can some of them. I mean, there's kind of a lot. I don't know if you remembered all. I I think I have a few of them at least. [clears throat] Let me know. We have to I went to the website of this company. One of the things they stress heavily is security. Absolutely.

And one principle they will talk to only one principle and that's you, right? That's me.

Okay. All right. Thank you. until I'm not here. All right. And then that would be that that guy. So, um so the first question is is there a turnkey product available that we can just buy off the shelf shrink wrap software you know and so forth and um kind of new Nanix VMware all of the industry leaders that make these products for data centers Citricx all of them they all sell an off-the-shelf product. It's the engineering and the implementation that makes it specific for your organization. That's why you need an implement like [clears throat] in this instance Hartland business systems. Uh and that design needs to be considered heavily with your existing assets of your of your environment and everything else. So yes, you can buy the product but the product is [snorts] got to be designed and implemented appropriately for your environment. Uh which is precisely what we've done in this instance. uh to the question about public cloud storage and KC just requirements and the FBI and so forth. This proposal is 100% designed specifically around those compliance issues uh and their stringent standards that they uh put on to us. And yes, our body cam vendors and incar cameras and all these vendors, they all do sell because it is a very uh cost beneficial for them to have their own public cloud and in small agencies and so forth when you have five or six officers. The initial investment of having your own onprim solution maybe does make the best financial sense. And if you don't have the technical expertise to manage an on-prim solution, that may be your only option. So they do offer those. Uh in our instance, every single time we've purchased a camera system or an embody, you know, whatever

that system is, we absolutely explore the costs and the benefit of is this the best bang for our dollar at the city to put it in their cloud because that would be wonderful if it was cheaper. Uh and they surprise not cheaper for them to host the uh storage on a monthly basis for us. Um, we've been able to leverage over the last 10 or 15 years our own assets and infrastructure to do this at a great reduction of cost monthly and annually to the city uh for those storage needs while leveraging them for other day-to-day purposes for all other city purposes. So, we do leverage that and that is a huge decision and a factor for us. It's a lot of cost and so forth and then they have to be compliant. Um just because it's in the cloud doesn't make it more secure. It doesn't make it more reliable per se. Um there have been a a lot of uh hacks and offline things that have happened recent.

Has the cloud ever been breached? Yes. Daily every day. Uh you've heard of some of them recently where they've brought down the entire ecosystem with one bad patch and update. We're for instance, Crowd Strike hit him uh recently about a year ago and then just a little while back everybody gets hit

uh Amazon, Microsoft. So the nice thing about it is is when you do have your own on-prim, you can kind of control that uh a little bit better. You're not just at the well, they're down. We didn't have any say in it. We have to deal with it. But there are advantages to being in the cloud, too. and when appropriate we most certainly will make that recommendation and we have started moving more and more critical systems in that path as it becomes more cost effective. So in the last meeting you you brought up that the intent was to eventually get to be cloud driven in the future. Absolutely.

So what is our window of looking forward to getting reaching that goal or achieving that goal? We're looking at home on prim device setup now. And then are we looking in the fiveyear window for this or is it the

Yeah, most critical systems if you looked at where we were 5 years ago, we're 60% of the way on all critical systems as appropriate. there will always be a certain amount that has to be stored on prim uh due to the fact that it's a legacy system and a company's out of out of business and there is no public cloud option available for them uh and the cost to get an outofdate legacy system pushed up to a cloud maybe doesn't even make financial sense to do so without custom development and so forth. So, it's always a first look. If we can make that choice and it is cost-effective for the city uh over that long-term um that cost of ownership of it, that is by far where we're headed. We simply have some software uh processes that cannot and probably should not at least at this time um do that. We like to keep some systems airgapped because that is the most secure uh way of doing it. uh and those still require some onprim uh functionality. So at some point we'll probably be mostly there. I I I don't know when that date would be but that is our goal and it is aggressive. Now like I said I did reach out to Jeff and I asked a ton of questions. Um some of this is new for this environment for me and some of it's just I want to know more about how it works and how things go. he did a very good job of explaining what he could u and his team uh to give me a better scope of what's going on and [clears throat] moving forward. So, I just want to say I appreciate that.

Thank you for coming in. I look forward to having an open dialogue. Absolutely. Jeeoff, I got a question. Yes, ma'am. The time gap between the breach and September of 23. Mhm. Why was it not critical after the breach and then why wouldn't you have followed along that timeline when you stood up everything after the security breach? At the time of a breach we well not at that time but it to me it looked like it follow along with that.

It it it most certainly does. This is a situation of market volatility of things that the city cannot predict or control uh with mergers and acquisitions. certain products became available and they suddenly became unavailable to purchase which rendered some of our solutions more at uh an interesting situation to uh update. Let me just put it that way. We simply got a proposal back and it was so cost prohibitive because of that market volatility that we didn't feel that it was the right move for the city at that time financially to do that. that night asking.

So when the security breach happened at that time, that part was important, but this and I'm just merely saying it looks like it was just hanging out over here and then you you brought it back in just recently, but we didn't know about it prior to and you said you've been dealing with it for about a year and a half. For the last two years. Yeah. Two years. Okay. So would that not be in your uh log of money out here in budget-wise in your department? I mean was this budgeted in your department?

Yes. I mean it was in the public safety. We had been for the last 12 years uh doing a annual purchase out of the public safety sales tax every year a lease purchase agreement. We typically put it on a 5-year lease purchase due to that's the typical age for hardware and supportability from the manufacturer. You know, a car is only going to last 20 years. So, so it was always in the public safety sales tax. It has always been in that. And

so that would have made it different from say like a couple weeks ago the street lights the safety in the city that was a different type of that was out of the general fund about the lighting for town. So, this is just in a different column. When we when we originally passed the public safety sales tax, this was a big part of it was getting a new um architecture that would support all the new systems and everything that we needed to move to. And then when we renewed it, um once again, Henry made sure that the language would support continuing that effort as well as replacing fire trucks and all the equipment that So, um their biggest challenge the last year and a half was um finding a product that was going to meet their needs that was cost effective. And so, um, having the last, I guess Jeff just said two years, year and a half,

um, while there's not a line item in there with this software because we don't know what it's going to cost, we do now because we know the lease is going to be spread out. We know what the payments are. The entire budget, all of our revenues are appropriated every year in the budget. That's why the budget's 75 million. Otherwise, we'd take the 20 million of reserves and we would only appropriate 55. So, um, it was in fact budgeted. It just wasn't in a line item because we won't put it in a line item until we know what it costs and where we're going to spend it from. But that's a great question. So, you're saying that this company is the only one that you feel comfortable with, but nobody else is capable of taking care of your needs other than H Heartland is

there. There could be many other vendors that do that. As far as the people that have reached out to the city out there that we have worked with and so forth, they're the only other one that produced a a proposal to us. [clears throat] that was cost effective, met all of our needs and uh and so forth. Both proposals were wonderful and could physically meet our needs. One is uh more cost effective for the city and a little bit easier to digest over the next five to six years because the upgrade process can be more incremental rather than just a forklift. So this has a does this have a shelf life of the five years? Five years is the typical

with technology moving like it does then it's just getting you from a to

this is getting us until 20 30 or 2031 at the end of there. Um at the end of there you're really asking hardware manufacturers if they'll still provide uh support software updates and so forth for products that are they call it deprecated or you know out of support uh out of band support and so forth and the cost of ownership and the meantime between failures starts increasing dramatically and that is just not a position we want to put ourselves in. Hopefully, like uh Commissioner Perry, you had mentioned hopefully 5 years from now that need looks a lot different because we are more towards the the cloud and the next time that we do this that design and and so forth should shrink and [clears throat] maybe we'll be more in the cloud or or who knows what the the world will will look like in five years.

And the public safety sales tax has how much go into it each year roughly? I'm not holding you to it. How much roughly goes in? It's a sales tax where everybody pays for it. 2.2 million. 2.2 million. So, it's just you're talking 227,000 a year for 5 years. Yeah. And uh to mention it, two years ago, we we did not put this proposal forward because [snorts] we didn't think it was the right financial decision for the city because it was considerably out of our our comfort level. So, we did not spend that money. that money went in and we did not procure an expenditure of that and then again last year we did not. So

for that year or year and a half you had to really be scared that nothing would happen then every day I'm afraid every day I I don't sleep much uh keep a close eye on things at the city uh as far as technology and services go and we are going to do our very best to fight that fight to make sure that we're doing what we can. Jeff, will you would [clears throat] you let us know again? I know you talked about this last week. The system we have now is barely doing in my words its job. So, we need to do something.

We do need to do something. We have uh we are very comfortable with our system. It is doing its job as it needs to do. It is up to date. It is everything that it needs to be. We have outgrown it as far as our demand, our peak and the capabilities of that system, but it can handle what we need. It is not supported by um everybody the same way, but it is time to move on from that system.

So, if we approve this tonight, the system we have now will still be operational until you have and I don't know what the time frame is on the new system. So once it's in the old system, can it be a backup or it's it's gone? It it won't need to be. This system has uh the production system which we're replacing the full disaster recovery which is basically a a carbon copy, you know, [clears throat] so you can just [snorts] do whatever on either environment as well as a cloud-based backup solution which gives us the ability to leverage that uh public cloud if necessary. Um, however, to avoid those costs, we'd like to stay on on prim as much as possible.

Jeeoff, [clears throat] I forgot to ask last week. So, is data migration part of this proposal or is this something you guys are going to have to do? Uh, no, it is it is included in this every single uh asset. This is a turnkey solution. As far as training goes, they will train the entire time they're doing it. We've always take a train the trainer approach. We're a very hands-on team. So as uh H Heartland Business System and their technicians are working through this, we will be working through it with them hand overhand so that at a moment's notice we end user is not going to see anything different. This is all back. This is all the back

and [snorts] and during the five years will if if the system goes down or there's a glitch in the system, do they cover it? We don't have to pay extra on top of that. No, that's in that's all included with the it comes with software support 24-hour hardware replacement within a 4-hour replacement cycle. So, you know, you lose a a critical piece of hardware on a on a [snorts] production piece of equipment like that, we should be able to fail over to our disaster recovery environment. Citizens, uh, city employees, public should not notice the difference. And, uh, then within 4 hours, the hardware manufacturer should have someone on site to replace that part. during that 5 years.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how vulnerable are we right now?

I can't answer that. I'm sorry. But I I can say this. It's only a matter of time before everyone in this whole world is hacked. And if you are targeted by a foreign actor, it's only a matter of time. Um so I I can't answer how vulnerable we are. Um but we are working diligently. And Jeff, one of the things what the public safety sales tax to be clear since this is predominantly for law enforcement use. I mean, one of the things that the public safety sales tax said was specifically those that halfcent sales tax would be used to buy technology and this supports that. Obviously, it's technology andor it's what makes all the technology the end user use works.

Yes. So that's that's why it's not really I read somewhere that it was a this is like an additional and it wasn't in the budget. It was unbudgeted. Really, it's this is exactly what the public safety sales tax is for. It's we're we're okay using you obviously utilizing it for that. It did three things. Yes, sir. [snorts] People, equipment, and a network that we can run everything on. And it was very specific and they support it for the five years. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Completely. And then just a outside question, the sheriff's department, they have body cams also, right? I believe so. Yeah. How's their system different from ours?

I can't speak to their system. I'm not sure where they store their body cams. They may be storing it on a public cloud. I am not at liberty to Oh, I just wonder to know that. Um they may not have the data infrastructure to to do this um inhouse. Uh like I said the decision on on storing of things and where they go and so forth. Number one decision is is it compliant and is it secure? If it is we can go to step two. Is it more cost effective to have it here or there?

Uh and I have never seen that much cheaper. If it is comparable, then there may be some some balancing there and you may be willing to pay a luxury to have it there. Um, we do that on some systems um specifically so that we can encompass a local disaster like a tornado and things like that. All there's so many factors that go into these decisions, but cost, availability, and compliance are the top three factors that go into every one of these decisions. And we we try to do that uh on every decision. Will this system talk to say the sheriff's system?

Yeah, in many capacities our system talks to so many system. I mean it's it's insane. But yeah, there are integrations with uh partnerships with uh Crawford County, PSU, other jurisdictions, law enforcement and so forth so that we can exchange data and support each other. Um, so yeah, it will 100% do that. Was the state state offices do it? Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's vital. Yeah,

I think a lot of people are looking at this one, they didn't understand or they don't understand the the type of bid process you went through to achieve where we're at today and you're briefing it to us. Um, and again, questions are flowing off of information or lack of information, I think. Sure. Also, um I know a big part of part part of this is uh return on investment. You know, taxpayers want to know this is best bang for the buck and that we're getting it at the lowest possible rate we can and still keeping our walls safe. Um I think most of that's going to be like every department in the city, everybody has needs and and directions they want to go with their equipment. Yours is a little bit different, of course, because of security. Sure. I feel that way, of course. [laughter] But yeah,

so explaining it to the commission I think is paramount uh to we have a better understanding of what's you know a five-year plan for a lot of things and lease agreements for a backhoe for five year makes sense. You know we can talk that we can openly look at it and see what it does with your department. We can't do that. So it draws a ton of other questions out there. So absolutely. No, I appreciate you going in depth on this. I I appreciate it. Um did I answer any were there any other questions? I didn't. No. Thank you, Mr. Sorry. So, are there any further questions from the commission for Jeff? If not, to approve. Moved. It's been moved by Dolph.

Second. Seconded by Stu. Uh, can we have a roll call vote on this? Brooks? Yes. [clears throat] Hi. Yes. Mel, yes. Perry, yes. Sigley, yes. Thank you all for your time for coming in and anytime you need anything. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Item B, Eagle Pitcher Technology change order number one. Consider staff recommendation [cough] to approve change order number one for Cromwell Cromwell for for the Eagle Pitcher technology project in the amount of $248,654 work associated with changes to doors, walls, room names, eyewash eyewash wastewater station and concrete work increasing the overall contract amount to 6,697,36 and an extension of 27 calendar days to the contract. Once again, if there's anybody in the audience that want have some concerns on this particular item, come forward, state your name and address.

Larry 168 North from Pittsburgh. I have a problem with this. Just a few weeks ago, you voted on this and now all of a sudden they're adding uh change orders for doors, walls, room names, eyewash stations, concrete work. Why wasn't this in the original thing you voted on? Somebody put it to you that, hey, this is what it is. Now you're getting this change order. You're getting a quarter million dollar change order, and this is not the last one. You know, first of all, you got a city manager. You got a deputy city manager. Somebody should have caught this. The commission, did you ask any questions on that?

Absolutely. I asked a ton of questions and I think uh Matt will be able to explain some of this when he comes up to give the brief. Okay. But I just to me why was it brought to you to vote for without this stuff added into it and all of a sudden it's added in. That's a lot of cost. A quarter of a million dollars. Doc, you have anything for me? Nothing. Okay. Thank you, John. Would anybody else have any concerns? Sorry. So, Matt Matt.

So, yeah, real quick. Um, first, this deserves a brief history. Um, in 2024, Eagle Pitcher approached us about um could they help could we help them expand in Pittsburgh? Um, we discussed alternatives. They landed on um our research park and a piece of land that we owned. So, um, we started talking about how we could help them with that. Um, we agreed it's advantageous to them to enter into leases with the way that they're paid. So, we agreed that um we would build the building, we would sell the bonds, um we would build it to their specs, and then we would um enter a lease when we're finished that they would in fact pay for and give a personal guarantee for all the costs associated with it, including um the cost of issuance and the bonds and give us a premium on top of that for doing the work. Um we brought this up on Feb February 11th. The commission approved the lease and development agreement, the funding agreement on September 9th. Um, we amended that lease because it was such, if you remember, it took so long for them to get going that we had to change all the substantial completion dates because Matt's like they're not going to be able to I think originally they were going to finish 6 months before where they're at now. Um, today we're presenting that first change order. Um, the thing to keep in mind is we are building this building for them. Um, we are building it to their specs, which is I think why we have the change order. We have somebody joining Matt from Eagle Pitcher if we have questions. But, um, there's no taxpayer dollars in this. This is not a change order. we will be paying for um we have an email from the the principal um that we got this week that said they will in fact um once again even their personal guarantee says they will but they'll be paying for this change order. So um I'll let Matt answer why the change order is needed

before. So longterm this is no cost to the city. Zero. We make money on this. Okay. And we get so much money every month from Eagle Pitcher to pay pay those bonds down. We have a lease a payment where we bill them. I think it's monthly and they pay the principal due, the interest due, and the premium that they're paying us above and beyond all that for our I guess our time and our effort. The bonds are already out there and they're already they're already

the bonds have been sold the we have the money and the projects underway and this change order. um while it's not something the the taxpayers the city is paying for um it is a change to the contract that we're under for building it which is why we brought it to you. So that's my question on the bonds that we sold the amount of whatever that was is this almost4 million dollars included into those bonds or where's this money coming from? No, that's why we got an email from them making sure that they were in agreement. That's like, look, we're not just eating this. And they're like, no, this is this is part of the overall any cost associated with this will be bored by the the lease. Okay,

Matt, today we had a lengthy conversation about this. I love the way he explained it. Tell the people exactly what we talked about today and why. What's the justification for this? Who Who's we? [clears throat] I talked to Matt today about it. Yeah, I called and asked him quite a few questions and I didn't understand it and then I did. So I appreciated what he the way he told it.

So Darren's kind of covered the how we got to where we are. The initial kickoff of how this change order came about. Um really we don't have all the answers. It's it was you know was a narrative to put out to contractors. It was bid. Um the project you know Eagle Pitcher is still working with multiple vendors. the spec specific change orders related to equipment that they buy to house in the facility. And so all those answers weren't given. They knew they needed a warehouse space. They knew they needed mechanical rooms. They knew they needed office space. They [clears throat] hadn't purchased all their equipment. They continue and there's still some more suppliers that they're currently having. They're still trying to figure out their equipment, who they're going to buy some of their equipment and supplies from, i.e. a lot of their gas yard things and those those vendors and what those vendors will bring um equipment wise to set and what they need facility-wise to set up. In this case, they hadn't finalized their production environment and their staging of equipment um for their production environment inside of there. So once they as they finalized those details for this that that came up with okay eyewash stations need to be related to that. we need to finalize what we need wastewater wise for some of this. Um there's a trench grade in there and so the reason it came before you tonight specifically is they have the contractor currently has a completion date for late April. Um they are currently edge forming slabs. They're going to pour one section of slab this week. So that underground needs to be done. they would like to get um you know they'd like to be pouring the rest of the slabs over this Christmas break while they have uh good weather if they can at all pull it off and I mean this will add some tazes to the end of this project but um you know hopefully next week we had a meeting today with them and they should you should start seeing some red iron in the air next week but so this is this is expeditious to keeping the project on schedule but that's how it how it

developed and if you would like to know Greg Kirk is here project manager for Eagle picture, but that's that's the synopsis of how we got to where we are. And some of that information was talked six hours. You're saying that this stuff that that listed here, it just wasn't forgotten. It was it was a work in progress. It wasn't a hard number to start with. It was a guesstimate and then as like you said, the building is being built and then everybody starts putting their

It was initial need based on their purchasing equipment, their final layout inside the facility. We know we need a shelf. We know we need sizes for office space. We know we need sizes for mechanical equipment. Some of that equipment that they bought changed some of the need for um having a trench or a chiller line that wasn't anticipated. Some additional sanitary sewer to tie in with their wastewater for collection along with where they station their workstations in relative perspective to needing an eyewash station for safety. And that's what modified.

Keep in mind we're building a building for them. They they designed it. Matt didn't we didn't contract for a design firm. They designed a building that they need. They're filling it up with their equipment and when things change or they're buying equipment they don't have plans for the building. They're going to adjust the building just like anybody would and that's the request. That's why nobody knew about it until we knew about it and that's why trying to get

So inside of this change order just that we haven't said out loud. So what the contractors bid on was based on an architect's supplemental instruction. So, Eagle Pitcher worked with their architect to do there's if you look in the in the memo, there's multiple plan sheet changes that happened. That's how the contractors base their prices. All that pricing from all their contractors or their subcontractors was submitted back through the architectural firm to vet their prices that aligns with what those changes required. And that's what we're bringing to you tonight. Like I said, some of this information just came up and that's why we're we're addressing it now. What is the tax implications here as far as the tax implications to

to the land the building? I mean, are they going to be taxed? Oh, Eagle Pitcher. Yeah. Yeah. They're actually making a payment in lie of taxes as part of their overall lease with us. So, there won't be any negative impact to um it will and the building's worth I think all all filled up is probably n or$10 million. So, it's uh it's not tax exempt if that's your question. Okay, good to know.

Some of the questions that building [clears throat] this week uh since this came out uh regarding looks like the biggest changes the cost draw for this are HVAC and plumbing and concrete uh which is normal stuff for building you know they've made some changes and we're adjusting to that. Uh one of the questions that came up was the duration of the bonds and the lease agreement. So that's a question for you Darren. How how long are those bonds held? Seven 10. We never do anything over 10, but I don't know off the top of my head, but I would guess it's probably 10. So, was it five and a half million to start with or was it six?

It started at five and a half. I think by the time um if you remember in February there was kind of a halt with the changing of the guard and and everything froze and that caused a pretty knee-jerk reaction from Eagle Pitcher about whether they were going to go forward with it. So by the time they recircled and decided it was something they were going to do, um they had price increases, but I I think I think we sold Yeah, just over six million of bonds. So the lease agreement, what's the what's the window of that projected window for it's just open or is it got stop and goes or renegotiated after term or um

we just you know we just have a standard lease we have standard lease agreement with them that all it's all contractually arranged. Um, we have personal guarantees for the cost. So, it's this is a contract that we're we build them I think it's do they decide quarterly or monthly? Monthly. Yeah. They decide they want to be build monthly. So, we have a 10 year I mean we have a lease that goes for the life of this project. Um, every month we send them a bill, they pay it, and it covers their principal, their debt, um, and their, um, they call it a kicker, but there's a very nice premium that they've added as well for us doing the business for them. And that's all scheduled. There's no stops in it. There's no

um, and at the end of that lease, it will be their building. It's not very often this happens either like this, right? We have never built a building and Matt's been here as long as I have and I don't remember us building anybody's building for them. So the change orders are not tax dollars. It's their their wants. And so that's one thing people need to be aware of that it's not taxpayers funding the change orders. This is customer service. We have agreed to build a building for somebody and lease it to them for the cost of that building and a premium. Um we are going to build the building to their specs. if their specs change, assuming we have time, we're going to make that change and they're going to pay for that as well.

And the projected benefit of having them do this and us accommodating their needs and getting the building to the specs they need is well worth it over that kind of time, too. Oh, I mean I mean this checks all the boxes. This is economic development. These are 50 40 to 50 really good jobs. This is a current partner that we have that has entities in other states and cities. So, the fact that they're doubling down on the the entity they already have here is extremely important for our economy. So, yeah, this is I mean, this is a heck of a deal. You definitely take a project like this any day or three. Yes. Take all of them,

but we have to get it built and we're well on our way. Any other question for Matt or Darren or Jay? Move to approve the request. Second. So been moved to approved by Stu, second by Cheryl. Can we have a roll call on this one? Brooks. Yes. Hi. Yes. Yes. Perry. Yes. Sley. Yes. Thank you, Matt. Thank you.

Moving on. Item C, December meeting schedule. Discussion is need needed to determine the preference of the city commissioner meetings members as the December meeting schedule. Is is there is there any business that we need to have another meeting? Not as of today. So we return to the normal normal meetings in January. That would be the preference of staff but we'll obviously do whatever you'd like. I think the is the 23rd would be the next meeting which is right before the Christmas Eve. So, we usually skip it, but do you want a motion to

Yeah, that I'd move to skip the December 23rd and resume in January regular schedule time. Second. [clears throat] Moved and second. All in favor say I. I. All oppose, same sign. Motion carries. Uh, is there any other We can't We're stuck to the agenda. Uh so entertain a motion to adjurnn. Second. Moved and seconded. Uh all in favor say I. I.

I. Same sign. Thank you. [music]